Me, the Mesprit
by Ivyvine
Summary: Darkrai has joined forces with the Inner Evils and kidnapped Adrienne in order to misuse her Azelf powers. Can Maddie and Tiger enter Adrienne's soul and stop them before the night of the lunar eclipse arrives? Part 2 of the Spirit Series
1. The Nightmare

"You gotta be kidding me. Please, tell me you're joking," my sister Adrienne said to my friend Caitlyn, a.k.a. Tiger. We were sitting around a little circle-shaped lunch table in the cafeteria of our school, Frank J. Eibod High.

Tiger just shrugged her shoulders, a sheepish grin on her face. " 'Fraid not," she replied.

"How lame! Man, was slipping that spoiled ranch dressing into Rachel Foreman's salad really worth a _whole month _of after-school main detention?" Adrienne asked.

"Completely," said Tiger instantly, and the three of us cracked up laughing. For an instant I saw Rachel glare over at us from the popular kids' table, which only made me laugh harder.

"The look... on Rachel's face... was priceless," Adrienne admitted between gasps of laughter.

Adrienne used to be pretty strict about keeping Tiger and me from doing anything that might get us in trouble, but she'd loosened up a bit ever since—well, ever since _it _happened.

It all started after an argument the three of us had had about the Spirit Pokémon: Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf. We'd been debating which of them had the coolest power. Which was pretty infantile, now that I think about it. But that night, impossible as it might sound, we'd _transformed_ into those Pokémon as we slept. Adrienne became Azelf, Tiger transformed into Uxie, and I turned into Mesprit. Pretty soon, we'd learned that the powers of knowledge, emotion, and willpower were not only equal to one another, but wouldn't even be able to _exist_ without one another. That, and evil versions of ourselves wanted to take over the world using our transformed bodies.

Yeah... long story short, we didn't argue about the Spirit Pokémon anymore.

But secretly, I sometimes really missed being a Mesprit. Having the power to control people's emotions was pretty dang sweet. I wondered if Tiger and Adrienne ever missed being Uxie and Azelf. I mean, come on. Who _wouldn't_ miss having that kind of power?

"Earth to Maddie! You're staring at nothing again, space cadet." Adrienne was prodding me with her spork.

"Huh?" I jerked out of my Mesprit daydream. "Oh, sorry. Kind of tired." I faked a little yawn and looked over at Tiger. "So you're staying at our house tonight so we can finish the geography project, right?"

"Yeah," Tiger said, and winced. "Lousy project. But I can't afford another lousy grade in the Ringworm's lousy class." _The Ringworm _was our not-so-affectionate nickname for our world geography teacher, Mrs. Rengwald. She wasn't mean so much as really, really boring. Her lectures made watching snails race sound fun.

* * *

That night, I had a dream that made the worst nightmares I'd ever had look tame.

It started out like any normal dream. Random stuff. I was walking with Tiger and Adrienne through an endless meadow. The grass waved slightly and made a soft _shush_ing sound as a gentle wind flowed through it. A full moon shone in the night sky, washing its silver light over the meadow.

The quiet scene filled me with a sense of peace.

And then, as I stared at the moon, it started to darken.

"Look!" I shouted in my dream, pointing. This was wrong. This was _very_ wrong. The moon wasn't supposed to black out. It set at dawn, but it never just disappeared like that. From the corner of my eye, I saw Tiger and Adrienne follow my gaze. The moon was being sucked into some kind of hole... no, not a hole, more like a huge dark eye that was opening in front of the moon, blotting out its light. And from that eye's center a beam of pure darkness exploded, hurtling right for us. The beam was completely silent as it blasted through space, which somehow only made it more frightening.

"Run," Adrienne said. As if I needed encouragement. I ran. Tiger followed close behind. But how could we escape... whatever it was?

"Running," I told myself. "Think about running, nothing else. We'll get away." Not that I believed it. Things never went my way in nightmares. And by now I'd pretty much figured out this was a nightmare, and a whopper too, even by my standards.

It took me until then to realize that I was no longer running. At least, my legs weren't moving. But somehow, I was still fleeing the dark beam. Alarmed, I looked down at myself. I recognized the shape of my body immediately. I was Mesprit again! Instinctively I pivoted in midair. Sure thing, where Tiger had been there was a Uxie instead.

But Adrienne...

"No..." It came out more like a drawn-out groan, but Tiger seemed to understand. She turned to where we'd last seen Adrienne. Both my sister and the beam of darkness were gone. The eye that had covered the moon—or had it been the eye of the moon itself?—had closed once again.

"_The eclipse," _a freaky voice hissed in my mind. Somehow I knew it came from the same source as the dark moonbeam. _"When your world's next eclipse comes, human, I will reign along with your inner evils..."_

A chill of horror shot down my spine. "Inner evils?" Was the voice talking about... but no, it couldn't be...

The horrible voice faded as suddenly as it came, and a much gentler one took its place. The hazy image of a beautiful Pokémon appeared before us, and I recognized it instantly even before it told us its name.

"_I am Cresselia, Lord of the Full Moon," _she said, and quickly turned to me. _"Listen carefully to me, for I fear there is not much time. Your sister is being held captive by Darkrai, the Lord of the New Moon. He is conspiring with your three Inner Evils to seize control of the universe come the night of the eclipse." _

"Eclipse?" I asked. Then I remembered that there was supposedly going to be a lunar eclipse over our city in... what was it... two days! Yes, two days. It had been on the news, but I hadn't really thought about it until now. Despite my terror, I couldn't help being mad that this stupid eclipse might mean the end of the world as I knew it.

Cresselia wheezed and suddenly looked very old and weary; my irritation faded and I felt my heart give a squeeze of sympathy. _"Sadly I cannot help you directly; Darkrai has already weakened me to nothing more than this image you see before you. But I can perhaps set you on your path. To oust Darkrai from your sister's soul, you must travel to her soul's very core. Look into my eyes, both of you."_

The core of Adrienne's soul? Cresselia's eyes flashed white for a split second. I blinked several times but didn't feel any different.

"What did you do?" Tiger asked in a trembling voice.

"_Now you will both be able to switch between your human and Pokémon forms at will. It is a last resort, but there is no other choice." _Cresselia looked gravely from me to Tiger. _"Return to the waking world for now and make any necessary preparations. There is not much time."_

Two days until the end of the world. And Tiger and I were expected to stop it before then. By ourselves. With no idea where we were going or what we were doing. _Find the core of Adrienne's soul, _Cresselia had said. What kind of task was that to ask of someone, for crying out loud?! We were just kids!

Cresselia was staring at me with a concerned expression. I forced back my anger. "No pressure," I said, forcing a smile. "Find the core of Adrienne's soul, stop Darkrai. Pretty simple." As if. We were toast.

"So, how do we get to this... core place?" asked Tiger.

"_You'll find out."_

* * *

I sat up in bed. My bedside alarm clock said 4:37.

Across the room, in the darkness, I saw Tiger sit up in the guest bed, sweating and gasping for air as if she'd just been submerged in water.

There was no one in Adrienne's bed. I ran over and opened my door. The bathroom door was wide open, and even from across the hall I could see that it was empty.

"That wasn't just a dream, was it?" Tiger asked from the guest bed.

I shook my head miserably, unable to form words.

"Guess we're not going to have time to finish the Ringworm's project after all," she said with a grim smile.


	2. The Soul

Tiger and I agreed that it would be a good idea to forget about sleeping and figure out how to keep everyone from noticing Adrienne's absence.

"Maybe we should just say she has the flu," said Tiger when I asked her what we should tell the school. "It worked last time, didn't it?"

"I don't know if they're going to buy that twice in a row," I said. "I mean, the counselors are pretty useless, sure, but they're not blind. I think they have this sixth sense that tells them, 'Hey, wasn't that the kid who just got over the flu two weeks ago?' And it's not even close to flu season. We can't just use that excuse over and over again. We need some new material."

Tiger frowned. "Well, it's not exactly like making up an alibi for Adrienne is the highest thing on our current to-do list anyway. Kind of takes second place to saving her from Darkrai and stopping the end of the world, ya know? Besides, maybe if we're fast enough about finding this soul core thingamajig, we won't even need one."

I sighed. "Let's hope so."

So we abandoned that idea and started discussing more important things. Like how to find the core of someone's soul. And how not to die in the process. Unfortunately we didn't know much about either of those subjects, so it wasn't very encouraging. We ended up just sneaking into the kitchen and taking a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch from the pantry. My stomach turned at the idea of eating, but I managed to force down a few spoonfuls before I couldn't take anymore.

We sat in silence for a few minutes, knowing we were wasting precious time but also afraid to do anything. Finally Tiger asked, "So how do we get inside Adrienne's soul?"

_Glad you asked, _a cheerful voice said in my head.

Suddenly dark shadows began to shoot from the ground up the kitchen walls. The shadows congealed on the ceiling, blanketing us in total darkness. I couldn't see my hand an inch from my face. I knew this must be the same stuff that had transported us to the weird mind-world where I'd first met inner-Maddie.

"Aaaaugh! Not this again!" I yelled.

"Holy Sugar-Honey-Iced-Tea!" Tiger shouted.

In a split second, the world turned from black to an empty whiteness. Sure enough, we were back in the blindingly white mind-world. Instinctively I switched to my Mesprit body. The change happened as quickly as the real world's transformation into the mind-world. I glanced over at Tiger and saw that she'd changed as well. If the Inners were here, we'd give them a fight.

For a few seconds nothing happened. Then, "Who's there?" Tiger challenged in a loud voice.

"I was wondering when you'd ask."

The voice clearly didn't belong to an Inner, but when we spun around to the source of the sound I still half expected to see one of their hateful faces. To my relief, it was a Dragonite, which just happened to be Adrienne's all-time favorite Pokémon. Adrienne loved Dragonite even more than she did Azelf.

"I am to be your guide into Adrienne's soul," said the Dragonite. He put his paws on his hips and stretched his puny wings to their full span, puffing out his chest importantly.

"Into?" I asked, puzzled. "Just into her soul, not through it?"

"I'm afraid so, Maddie," the Dragonite replied apologetically. For a moment I wondered how he knew my name, but then I figured it made sense if he'd come from Adrienne's soul. "I can lead you _to_ the soul," the Pokémon went on. "But the journey to the _core_ of a soul can only be made by people from your world. You'd call them 'real people,' though the word 'real' isn't totally accurate. Everything exists in some form or another, really."

It was so cool having the chance to talk to a Dragonite. He had such a compelling voice too, somehow both powerful and gentle, like the sound of a French horn. It was intensely comforting with the memory of Darkrai's horrible voice still haunting me.

Tiger looked troubled despite the Dragonite's soothing tones. "What exactly is the core of a soul?"

It occurred to me that I'd been wondering the same thing, but lately there had been so many other things to worry about that anything that wasn't extremely important had moved to the back of my mind.

"The core of a person's soul... How can I explain it? It's the thing that defines a person on the most basic level. It's what makes every person _who_ he or she is." The Dragonite's voice became grave. He seemed to be choosing his words very carefully as he went on: "If someone... bad... were to manage to infiltrate the core another person's soul, that bad someone could seize control of the person's entire being. Even a 'not real' bad someone could do it, as long as they were powerful enough."

My heart throbbed hard against my ribcage and a wave of nausea crashed over my little Mesprit stomach. "So what you're saying is... if Darkrai reaches the core of Adrienne's soul before we do, I mean before Tiger and I do, then he could take over her body?"

The Dragonite nodded slowly. "Exactly. He may even have reached the core already, but he will not have the power to truly seize Adrienne's soul until the night of the lunar eclipse, when the moon shines red." Here, his voice dropped to nearly a whisper. He kept his composure, but from the look in his eyes and the way he kept rustling his wings in agitation, I could see that he was as scared as me. I suddenly realized that if this Dragonite really did come from Adrienne's soul, he was in as much danger from Darkrai and the Inners as Adrienne herself.

"Well," said the Dragonite in a voice that sounded braver than he appeared to feel, "no use standing here chatting. Now we go... to Adrienne's soul!"

And the whole world of light exploded.

"WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO!!" Tiger shouted.

"AAAAAAAUUUGGGHHHHHHHHH!!" I screamed.

Tiger and I were hurtling through some kind of tunnel made of light and sound—a horrible screeching noise that, had I not been distracted by the fact that I was hurtling through a crazy tunnel, probably would have made me want to rip my eardrums out with my own fingers. Everything was a chaotic whirl as we were pulled along by some invisible hurricane force. And just when I thought my head would burst open from the speed and the noise and the force of my own shrieking—

Everything stopped.

It was like a movie fade when one scene changes to another. The white slowly filled with color, and I found myself sitting on soft grass in a great field of flowers in every shade and hue. Tiger was sitting a few feet from me. Neither of us seemed to be hurt.

"Is this Adrienne's soul?" asked Tiger, looking around in awe at the endless meadow. It was the image of a perfect summer day here; the sky was a cloudless, powdery blue, and a cool breeze ruffled the flora on the ground, turning it into a flowing sea of flowers.

"It better be," I grunted, my short Mesprit limbs wobbling like fresh Jell-O, " 'cause I sure as heck ain't going back into that stupid tunnel."

"Oh, come on," she said, smiling at me. "You gotta admit it was pretty fun."

"Fun? _Fun?!_ Oh, sure. If being sucked through some insane light tunnel to heaven knows where, all the while being forced to listen to obnoxious screechy sounds that make you want to just stab your ears and be done with it, qualifies as fun, then I've just had a blast. Seriously, Tiger. Haven't you ever been to Six Flags? Or Disneyworld? Where usually people don't become deaf due to side effects from riding the roller coasters?"

Tiger had been incapacitated with laughter through the whole speech. "Not... ahaha... as... hahaha... fun," she managed to choke out.

I rolled my eyes. "Look, if you're just going to be goofing off through this whole trip, you might as well—hey, pay attention! What are you looking at?!" Tiger had stopped laughing and was staring at something past my shoulder (well, not really staring since Uxie keeps its eyes closed, but you know what I mean).

"Shut up and turn around," she said numbly.

I turned and was startled so badly I nearly peed myself. An enormous cave had appeared, its mouth wide open before us, which was what had scared me; at first glance I'd thought it was the mouth of some monster, poised to hork us down its gargantuan gullet. From the look of consternation on Tiger's face, the cave hadn't been there just a few seconds ago.

"Should we go inside?" I asked quietly after a while of staring into the cave's dark mouth.

"Something's written on the side of the entrance," Tiger said suddenly. "Look."

Cautiously we floated closer.

"_SOROREM ET AMICAM - INTRATE," _I read aloud. "Sounds like Latin. Figures a Latin geek like Adrienne would have something like this in her soul."

"But what does it mean?" Tiger asked. "Sheesh, she could've at least left directions in English."

"I don't think she had much of a choice." I thought hard for a moment. "Adrienne told me the word _intrare_ means 'to enter' in Latin," I said. "Maybe _intrate _means something like that. And Adrienne wouldn't lead us somewhere bad."

"So, what are we going to do?" she asked.

I paused, taking a slow, deep breath to calm my tattered nerves. Tiger watched me silently, waiting for me to go on.

"I say we go in," I decided.


	3. The Caves

The first thing we saw after entering the cave was more Latin on the walls. The words gave off a faint silvery-white glow that not only helped us to read them, but also lit up the cave somewhat. "Good, at least it's not pitch black in here," I muttered.

"No kidding," said Tiger. "What do they say?"

I floated up to the wall and stared at the words. _"AD MEDIVS," _it said, and a small glowing arrow written next to the words pointed deeper into the cave.

"What the heck does _add mee-divs _mean? Why couldn't she have just left directions in English?" Tiger complained again.

"Um..." This time, I had no clue about what the Latin could possibly mean. "Well," I said hesitantly, "there's an arrow, anyway. Should we follow it, or no?"

"Sure, why not," Tiger said, shaking her head in exasperation. "It's as good a direction to start as any. It's not like we have enough knowledge of Latin to make anything of these stupid signs anyway."

The word _knowledge_ set off all sorts of alarms in my brain. At first I couldn't figure out why, but when I looked at Tiger, I suddenly felt like the world's biggest moron.

"Duh! You're Uxie, the Being of _Knowledge_!" I clapped my hand to my forehead, groaning. "Geez, Tiger, why didn't we think of it before? You can just use Uxie's power to read the signs!"

Judging from her dismayed expression, it was obvious that this hadn't occurred to her either. "Of course. I was just about to say that." I narrowed my eyes in exasperation, and she winced. "Okay, maybe not. Just move over and let me try reading this, all right?"

Though her eyes were closed, she seemed to be staring at the words with intense concentration. From behind their lids, her eyes seemed to be glowing. Finally the glow stopped; she looked over at me and said, "It means 'to the center'. I guess we could take 'center' to mean 'core', couldn't we?"

"Then we follow the arrow after all," I said, enormously relieved that we would be able to read the Latin signs from now on. Something else occurred to me. "Remember the words written by the cave mouth? What did they mean?"

"You mean the _intrate_ one?" Tiger asked.

"Yeah."

"Now that I think about it... hmmm... it said 'Sister and Friend - Enter'."

I rolled my eyes. "Naturally. So we did the right thing, coming in here. 'Course, it would've been nice to know that back when we were freaking ourselves out over whether to come in the dang cave."

"No kidding," said Tiger. "Now let's stop wasting time just floating around here. We kind of have a world to save, you know? And I have a feeling that Darkrai isn't gonna just sit around at the core and wait for us to go beat him up."

* * *

Just a little farther into the cave, we saw that there were several dark tunnels that branched away from the big main part of the cave. Each tunnel had a bit of Latin script written next to its entrance. The first tunnel we investigated was labeled _"AD FLVVIVS"_, which looked like complete gibberish to me. Tiger said it meant 'to the river.'

"Um-kay. I'm not going in there," I said. "Cresselia didn't say anything about a river."

"She didn't say anything about a cave either, but that didn't stop us, did it?"

I grunted. At least Tiger was finally beginning to take advantage of the fact that she was the Being of Knowledge, and that was all I really cared about. Still, I wished she could figure out which tunnel we were supposed to go through, but the core of Adrienne's soul was undetectable even to her Uxie powers. It was incredibly frustrating. It was almost like Adrienne _wanted_ Darkrai and the Inners to take over the world.

"Come on, let's try some of these other tunnels first. I mean, there has to be a clue _some_where. Doesn't there?"

Tiger shrugged. "It's a start."

We took a look at several more tunnel entrances. The writing next to one said _"AD NEX"_. "Sounds promising," I said. "Kind of like 'to the next', right?"

Tiger looked like she was going to have a panic attack. "Not there," she snapped, grabbing my hand and dragging me through the air to the next tunnel.

"Ow! Geez, what'd it say?!"

" 'To a violent death.' "

"Ah. Of course." I blanched, glancing over my shoulder at the words. "Adrienne and her precious Latin!" I fumed. "She really is trying to kill us, I swear."

"Let's try this one," said Tiger suddenly. _"AD MALEFACTORES"_... that means 'to the evil ones'. Darkrai and the Inners, maybe?"

"The evil ones. Great. No more talking for right now, okay? All this stuff about violent death and evil ones is making me feel really sick."

"Well, like I said, it's a start. Let's just go."

* * *

As I'd expected, the tunnel was dark and eerily silent; in here, there was no glowing writing on the walls to guide us. The tunnel didn't twist or turn, though, just stretched on and on in an endless straight line. For the first hundred feet or so it was also devoid of life; even as our eyes adjusted to the darkness, there wasn't a single living creature to be seen.

Then, after a while, Tiger suddenly screamed, "EEEWW, AAAUUUUGH!!"

"Ssshhhh, keep it down! What happened?" I demanded.

"Something hairy just brushed across my face!" she squeaked. "Like, a bat or something!"

I shuddered. "A... bat?" Then I felt something furry brush past my shoulder. I cried out and jerked away. "Oh, that's just great. All we need now is some—"

"Maddie, look," Tiger rasped. "The bats..."

There was a sound like a thousand umbrellas snapping quickly open and shut as scores of bats poured out of crevices in the tunnel walls, shrieking as they flapped toward us. Now that I could see them more clearly they actually looked more like furry black snakes with wings than real bats, which only horrified me further.

Tiger and I bolted in the opposite direction.

"I _told_ you I had a bad feeling about this tunnel, but nooooo! We just _had_ to go into the tunnel that led to a freakin' huge colony of weird bats that don't even know how to be bats!" I raged as the air whipped past my face. I wasn't angry at Tiger so much as myself; I should never have agreed to go into a tunnel labeled 'to the evil ones'. This wasn't just crazy, it was practically suicide! This whole _mission_ was suicide!

Tiger said nothing during my rant, focusing only on one thing as she flew: escape. I snapped my mouth shut. Idiot! Screaming like a madwoman when I should have been saving my breath for flight. I deserved to be caught by the freaky not-bats.

And just when I thought I couldn't get any more freaked out, the not-bats did something very unexpected.

"_River! River! River!"_

At first I thought the sound was just in my imagination, and I tried to ignore it as I fled the not-bats; I could see the tunnel opening just up ahead, leading to the main part of the cave that radiated with the faint glow of Latin. I put on an extra burst of speed, as did Tiger. But there definitely seemed to be a sound like many thin, scratchy voices chanting _"River! River! River!" _behind us, and at last, with a heavy heart, I began to understand: The not-bats were going to drive us through the tunnel that led to the river, and we were either going to drown or be killed by these hideous creatures who beat their wings in desperate pursuit of us. When I glanced back at Tiger, I saw with alarm that she was trailing behind, beginning to give up as the not-bats caught up to her with cries of triumph. My heart pounded in sympathy and fear as the hope drained from my body as well.

Hope. One of the most powerful emotions. ...

"NO!" I shouted, suddenly refusing to give up. I pulsed out waves of emotion to Tiger, trying to give her the strength to go on. To my great relief, she perked up and caught up to me almost immediately.

"They're chasing us to the river," I gasped as we burst from the tunnel entrance at last, the not-bats right on our tails. "We'll lose them in the current; it has to go somewhere." Tiger nodded breathlessly. It wasn't great, but it was the best I could come up with right now.

Tiger and I hurtled through the stale cave air and quickly found the tunnel that said _"AD FLVVIVS"_. We shot through the entrance and were enveloped in darkness once more.

"Come on. Can't be much farther," I grunted, more to myself than to Tiger. Even with emotion flooding so strongly throughout my entire being, I could only push my small Mesprit body so far before fainting from exhaustion. And I sure wasn't about to be captured by these stupid not-bats. It was strange; before, I'd been terrified by them, but now they were just ticking me off to the extreme. No _way_ were we about to lose to these stupid freaks!

Suddenly the tunnel gave way to a cave smaller than the one we'd just come from. A thick dark ribbon of water flowed through it, and I could only hope that if we went into the water, the current would carry us far away from the not-bats. But there was no time to sit and think.

"Dive!" I shouted.

And just as the ominous cacophony of wings reached us, we plunged into the dark river, the surface closing between us and the multitude of winged creatures.


	4. The River

It wasn't like being in water; that's the first thing I noticed about the dark river. Tiger and I were both held suspended beneath the surface, but whatever was holding us up didn't feel like liquid. It didn't even have a temperature.

The not-bats hovered restlessly above us like a dark cloud before a storm, screeching indignantly; despite their best efforts, Tiger and I had escaped, and none of them seemed too keen on diving in after us. I couldn't help but smile as the strange current of nothingness pulled us away, leaving them bewildered and hungry. "Sorry, guys," I thought, "but Maddie and Tiger are _not_ what's for dinner."

"Ha ha. _Very_ funny. Ever consider going into stand-up comedy? Because you'd be great, you know? Seriously. No joke. You'd draw huge crowds every night. Can you tell I'm being sarcastic, by the way?"

I looked back at Tiger. "Be quiet," I said, but for some reason sound just wouldn't come out of my mouth, and somehow I knew it was because of the not-water. "Ugh. Stupid river," I thought.

"Yeah. Stupid river that saved us from the snake-bat freaks. Would a little gratitude kill you?"

I glanced back at Tiger. She shrugged and mouthed, "What?" Realizing with surprise that she couldn't speak aloud, she clapped a hand to her mouth.

"Let me guess... we can only communicate in here by thinking?" I thought at her.

She shrugged again. "Unless you prefer to lip-read."

"No, not really."

For a few minutes we let ourselves be carried along by the swift current, just in case the not-bats decided to follow us downstream after all. Luckily, we never heard any more leathery wings snapping above us. After a while I let my tired muscles unclench, surrendering myself to the current's steady pull.

And then I felt it.

A pulse not unlike the waves of emotion I had given off to help Tiger, but somehow... calmer, more powerful, washing me in a sense of serenity. Maybe this was a river that flowed with feelings instead of water.

"Did you _feel_ that?" I asked Tiger in my thoughts.

"Yeah. Kinda felt like something a Mesprit would give off."

"_You're not far off!"_

Tiger and I opened our mouths in silent yells of astonishment. That voice!

"ADRIENNE?!" It was unbelievable; somehow she was able to mentally communicate with us! A disturbing thought crossed my mind: Was this river made of _Adrienne's_ feelings? Were we swimming in the very place my sister's emotions were created?

"_So you can hear me! Great! Okay, listen to me."_ Adrienne's words seemed to fill the river with her happiness and relief knowing Tiger and I had escaped Darkrai's moonbeam. _"Guys, you're in my Stream of Consciousness, which is the only reason I can talk to you right now. Lucky for you, if you just stay in the stream it'll take you right to the core. Darkrai is holding me there—and don't ask me how I can be inside my own soul, because I have no clue—and he thinks he's smart by keeping me imprisoned in my worst nightmares, but frankly nightmares get boring fast when you know they're not real."_

"Hey, Adrienne, what's the big deal with the bat things?" I asked, heaving with silent, relieved laughter. Adrienne was still okay, there was still time! "I mean, I _knew_ you were weird, but geez, that was just going a little overboard!"

"_Bat things? You mean the Serpensaligeres? Huh, I figured you'd be dumb enough to go into a cave labeled 'to the evil ones', so I left them in there to chase you here. The Serpensaligeres are completely harmless, actually. And before you say anything, no, I couldn't make the Latin signs say whatever I wanted them to! It took a ton of energy just to make this cave appear for you; believe me, I'm no magician, so you'd better come save me before the Inners and Darkrai make me pull my final vanishing act!"_

"Saving you is the general idea, yes. Don't worry, those four will be sorry they ever messed with us," I assured her, hoping I sounded more confident than I felt. Well, at least Tiger and I wouldn't have to search for the core anymore, now that we knew the river—or the Stream of Consciousness, as Adrienne had called it—was going to take us there. But then something else occurred to me. "You know Cresselia, right?"

"_Of course. I saw her locked up when Darkrai captured me and brought me here. She didn't look too well. But right before Darkrai plunged me into endless nightmares, she spoke in my mind and promised to send you a message."_

"How long has it been since Cresselia came to speak with us? Do you know?"

The emotions of the Stream of Consciousness seemed to darken with uncertainty. _"You know, I'm not a hundred percent sure. As far as I can figure from sensing the moon's rise and fall, Cresselia sent you her message two nights ago. This will be the second full day they've had me imprisoned. Why do you ask?"_

Tiger and I looked at each other with horror. It had been that long already?

"But..." I said, shuddering with fear, and cut the thought short. It couldn't be true. If this was the second day since Adrienne's capture, then that could only mean one thing.

"The eclipse," said Tiger dully.

"_The eclipse?"_ asked Adrienne, clearly confused.

"It's why Darkrai wanted you in the first place—and why the Inners are working with him," Tiger explained in a hollow voice. "Normally a person's soul is too powerful to be taken over by brute force. But tonight there's going to be a lunar eclipse... and when the moon turns red, Darkrai will gain the power to overcome your soul and use your Azelf body. He and the Inners will be able to control the willpower of everyone. ..." She paused then finished haltingly, "Everyone on Earth!"

For a long time Adrienne said nothing, but it was a loaded silence. After a few minutes I began to worry that Darkrai or the Inners had discovered her communicating with us. I was about to say something, anything to reassure my sister, when a pulse of emotion struck me so hard I thought my tiny Mesprit body would be shaken to bits.

"Adrienne! What're you _doing_?!" I yelled mentally. Over and over, I was bombarded from every direction by a frighteningly unstable mix of emotions: panic, guilt, horror, and, most unmistakably, anger.

"_It's all my fault!"_ she cried. _"If I hadn't just stood there like a deer in the headlights and watched that moonbeam come down on me, none of this would've ever happened!" _

The river surged and boiled, threatening to dash Tiger and me against the stone it flowed through. "Adrienne, if it weren't for you, Tiger and I would probably be trapped too! Stop blaming yourself for this!" I cried, struggling against the iron grip of the violent flow. Adrienne didn't seem to have heard me. No matter how hard I tried to send out waves of calm hope, my Mesprit powers just weren't enough to make her stop this torrent of feelings.

Finally I just decided to try a different approach.

"Adrienne." No answer; the not-water continued to swill me about wildly as Adrienne rambled on and on about how the whole world was doomed thanks to her stupidity. "Adrienne, shut... _UUUUUUUUUUUUUP_!" I shrieked mentally, pouring every last ounce of mental energy into the single blared word.

As it turns out, mental shrieks can be much, much louder than oral ones if you try hard enough. Finally, FINALLY, my sister fell into a blessed silence. At the same time, the tsunami force of the Stream of Consciousness began to lessen. Over the course of a few seconds it lost its monstrous wrenching pull, slowly at first, then with increasing speed, until at last the current was back to its original swift-but-gentle state.

I heaved a sigh of relief, silently vowing to never again play in the wave pool at Splashtown for as long as I lived. Even though the river was made of emotions, I was really ticked off at water right now. Water could be a royal pain in the butt. Then again, so could sisters. Geez!

Adrienne was quiet for another long while, but I could feel her pensiveness streaming past me. When she spoke up it was to say, _"You're nearly at the core of my soul; I can sense it. Please, just do your best. And thank you. Thank you so much."_ She gulped. _"For coming this far."_

From the tone of her voice, it didn't seem like she felt much confidence that Tiger and I would be able to take on all three Inners and Darkrai by ourselves. She tried to hide it, but I still felt tiny trickles of her anxiety and doubt stream past. I couldn't say I blamed her. Without any help, how could Tiger and I possibly hold our own against the four powerful evildoers, much less defeat them? My heart sank, but I tried not to pay my dwindling spirits too much attention. There was always hope; I had to go on believing that. I sent a weak pulse of the emotion to Tiger; understanding the message, she turned to me and allowed herself a sad smile and an encouraging nod.

I smiled back, and firmly decided that no matter what happened, I wasn't about to go down without fighting the good fight. From my social studies class last year with Mrs. Hutchins—who had been much more fun than the Ringworm—I recalled Patrick Henry's famous quote: "I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

"_Yeah... I like that! Give me liberty, or GIVE ME DEATH!! ... Um, preferably liberty." _Tiger and I cracked up with muffled laughter. So Adrienne still had a sense of humor after all. Maybe she didn't doubt us as much as I had thought.

All at once, the Stream of Consciousness just... ended. The two of us were dumped out onto land. Neither of us was wet, but now we were both in high spirits. "Give us liberty or give us death! Give us liberty or give us death!" Tiger and I chanted like hyped-up cheerleaders at the football game of saving the world. We floated up from the riverbank and stopped our chant short when we found ourselves in a creepily familiar meadow.

It was an exact replica of the field where Cresselia had given us the details of our mission. The place where Darkrai had captured Adrienne with his dark moonbeam. ...

"Give you liberty or give you death? Hmm. You're not giving us much of a choice here, now are you? Not nice, other me!"

The chillingly cheerful voice was all too familiar, so I knew who would be standing there even before I turned my head.

"_Careful, guys... now it's up to you..."_ Adrienne's voice wavered, then faded, leaving us to face the evil ones alone.

Inner-Maddie, the one who had spoken, stood grinning nastily next to her equally nasty friends, Inner-Adrienne and Inner-Tiger. And behind them, hovering like an image torn from a nightmare, was Darkrai.


	5. The Core

"You know what to do," said Inner-Adrienne, nodding up at the dark Pokémon. With a wraithlike howl that froze the blood in my veins, the Lord of the New Moon plunged straight at Tiger and me, his single ice-blue eye flashing malevolently.

"Split up!" I shouted, and the two of us took off in opposite directions. From the corner of my eye I saw the three Inners running away from the soon-to-be battlefield. "Cowards!" I thought with a quick flash of scorn. "They don't want to get hit by any of our attacks, so they're just leaving Darkrai to fend for himself and making a break for it. Some loyalty!" It was almost enough to make me feel sorry for the insane Pokémon—almost.

"You will not live to see the eclipse," hissed Darkrai, momentarily confused by the split-up. I watched over my shoulder as he glanced first at me, then at the fleeing form of Uxie Tiger. Then he turned back to me and gave chase.

"Oh, _come on_," I couldn't help shouting, throwing my arms upward as I flew across the flowery meadow. "Why me?!"

"Your friend will join you soon enough, Mesprit!" my pursuer barked.

"Not likely!" I hurled the words back over my shoulder. I figured a little shameless bluffing couldn't hurt at this point. "Free Adrienne and Cresselia and then maybe we can work something out!"

At the mention of the Lunar Pokémon's name, Darkrai seemed to become more enraged than ever. "Cresselia!" he roared. "When the moon eclipses tonight, you'll see that you should have allied yourselves with me, not that traitor!"

"_Traitor?"_ What the heck was Darkrai talking about now? I didn't have time to think about it, because just then a burst of pain exploded through my body.

Darkrai had finally caught up, and he'd used his Pursuit attack—a move that did much more damage to a fleeing foe like me. That, combined with the fact that Psychic-types like Mesprit were doubly vulnerable to Dark-type attacks, left me plunging from the sky and landing face-first on a bed of flowers.

"Hey, Jerkrai! That's not cool, beating up on my friend like that! Take THIS!"

From above there was a huge _THWAP_ sound and a howl of pain and fury, and a moment later I felt Tiger's hands lifting me off the ground. "I just gave him a taste of U-turn attack," she told me excitedly. "It's Bug-type and it's the only move we can use that's super-effective against Darkrai. Wanna try it?"

"Do I ever!" I growled, pulling myself free of Tiger's grasp. Mesprit's fighting spirit rose inside me as I shook away the shock from Darkrai's attack. I spotted the dark creature lying on the ground a few yards away, still reeling with pain from Tiger's unexpected strike.

I flung myself at Darkrai, screaming "U-TUUUURN!"

The Pokémon's blue eye stared frostily up at me for a split second, and he rolled out of the way just before my attack would have made contact. Soil and flower petals sprayed as I landed flat on my face for the second time in as many minutes.

"Unghh!" I moaned.

Above me, I heard the Pitch-Black Pokémon chuckle darkly. "You think I am stupid, Mesprit?"

Badly weakened, I flipped painfully onto my back and saw that one of his hands was wrapped around Tiger's neck.

"Let her go!" I said as forcefully as I could, but Darkrai just smirked at me and squeezed tighter. Tiger desperately tugged at his fingers, but he had her trapped in a strangling grip. Furious, I made myself sit upright and forced a fierce expression, but Darkrai just laughed again.

"In just a few moments, Uxie will be no more," he said. "How do you expect to fight me alone in your feeble condition?" He narrowed his eye smugly and lifted his free hand to point at the rapidly setting sun. "You may as well give up," he went on. "When the moon eclipses tonight, there will be nothing you can do to stop me. You can try to weaken me now, yes, but in the end your efforts will have been in vain."

I couldn't push my weakened Mesprit body hard enough to do another U-turn attack, but my mind was still more or less intact. "Psybeam!" I thought, and a crazy wave of pinkish-purple energy burst from the red jewel on my forehead, lancing over to Darkrai.

Too late, I remembered that Psychic attacks were no good against Dark-types. The Psybeam didn't even push him back; it actually reflected off his body and slammed into the wall next to the cave mouth where the Stream of Consciousness ended.

"This is a waste of time," Darkrai said, shaking his head contemptuously. "Die!" He glared at Tiger, and his eye glowed in preparation for a lethal attack.

Shrieking wrathfully, a huge orange shape plummeted from the sky and crashed into Darkrai, sending him hurtling across the meadow and jarring Tiger free of his grasp. A Hyper Beam attack blasted from the orange shape and enveloped Darkrai in its blinding light. The Lord of the New Moon dropped like a stone to the ground and lay motionless among the vibrant flowers.

"Serves him right," I thought vehemently. "Let's see how _he_ likes getting his face buried in the dirt!"

Gasping for breath and rubbing vigorously at her throat, which had turned an angry red from the pressure of Darkrai's cruel grip, Tiger flew over to join me. "What... was... that?" she rasped.

Her orange rescuer landed in the flowers with a _thud_ and turned to face us. My eyes widened and my heart throbbed with disbelief.

"_DRAGONITE?!"_ Tiger and I exclaimed.

"But how?" Tiger said. "You said you couldn't come to the core with us!"

The Dragonite stretched his green-membraned wings with a grunt of satisfaction. "I said I couldn't come because only those who are 'real,' or at least powerful enough, can enter the core." He smiled at me. "Lucky thing your Psybeam left an opening in the barrier for just a split second, isn't it?"

I probably would've fainted with relief, but my curiosity got the better of me. "I didn't know you could make openings in the barrier. Heck, I didn't know there was a physical barrier in the first place!"

"Neither did I, to tell you the truth," said the Dragonite with a shrug. "But it does explain why the Inners were able to bring Darkrai here with them. Since they're 'real,' or at least extensions of 'real' people, they might have been able to keep the barrier open just long enough to let Darkrai through, as well as Cresselia, although of course she was unconscious at the time."

"Aaaahhh! My head is killing me from all these explanations!" Tiger croaked. I looked at her in alarm, but she just grinned mockingly. "Of course, it could just be the near-strangulation, you know?"

Despite myself, I cracked up laughing, and Tiger and the Dragonite joined in. If you've never heard a Dragonite laugh like crazy, which you probably haven't, then consider yourself lucky. It was like listening to a blue whale singing on radio with the bass turned all the way up.

"Well," said Tiger, "I think our friend Darkrai is down for the count. I wonder how the Inners will react when they realize their plans have failed miserably."

"We... _augh..._ haven't failed yet, fool!"

I looked down in amazement. Despite his terrible injuries, Darkrai had dragged himself all the way over to us. He collapsed, coughing, near the Dragonite's feet.

* * *

The sun dipped below the horizon much more quickly than in the normal world, and the moon began its steady rise into the night sky. Darkrai lay panting shallowly near the Dragonite but made no move to attack. He just glared up at the three of us, as if daring us to finish him off for good.

"_You_ might as well give up," the Dragonite growled down at him. "Without your power, the Inners' plan is ruined. You never should have attacked Cresselia and kidnapped Adrienne. You might have disrupted the entire balance of nature, or hadn't you realized that?!"

"Me? Disrupt the balance of nature? You're even stupider than I thought, you Dragon-type simpleton!" Darkrai wheezed painfully and slowly craned his neck to stare vindictively up at me. "The Inners told me everything! Your sister and Cresselia were planning to change the cycle of the moon so that it would always be full and bright. If I am unable to bring in the new moon, how am I expected to carry out the very purpose of my existence? It's madness, I tell you! It's _unfair_! Cresselia and the Azelf girl are the villains, not me."

I gaped at Darkrai. "Say _what_?! You actually believe what the Inners tell you? They're liars, they're _insane_!" The Inners were even worse than I'd thought; they'd led the poor Pokémon here on nothing but outrageous stories, and when he had attacked Cresselia and captured Adrienne, he'd thought he'd been doing the right thing! Now I felt genuinely sorry for this enigmatic creature.

Darkrai snorted, unimpressed by my accusations. "So you say, Mesprit. I won't be tricked by you—I know where your loyalties lie!"

"Oh, you're exactly right, Darkypoo," said a condescending voice behind us. "Maddie's loyalties are right where they've always been—with the _goooood_ side, like that obnoxious Cresselia, and the much less intelligent other version of me!"

The three Inners stepped forward. Inner-Adrienne, the one who had spoken, smiled unpleasantly. "Really, it's a bit of a shame you're so gullible, Darkrai. Did you honestly believe our little story about Cresselia?"

Darkrai stared at the Inner Evil, his face a picture of pure shock. "You... you...!"

"And that little bit about sharing the rule of Earth with us?" Inner-Maddie added with a psychotic giggle. "Yeah, we kind of made that part up too. As soon as we've absorbed your power granted by the eclipse, you won't be very useful to us anymore! More like dead!"

So this had been their plan all along. With me, Tiger, the Dragonite and Darkrai all weakened from our battle, the Inners had been able to come in and claim their victory without a struggle. And all along, they had been planning to use Darkrai then cast him aside like a used battery whose energy had run out.

"Dead..." The pale blue eye closed and Darkrai lay silent, as if unable to comprehend the fact that he'd been betrayed like this. My heart lurched unexpectedly. He looked so pathetic; I couldn't stand to see anyone like this, not even Darkrai.

His eye opened again and met mine, but his gaze was passive rather than pleading. It killed me inside to see him just giving up like this, admitting defeat to these three monsters who called themselves inner humans. As I stared back into his eye, I tried desperately to send him a message: _An enemy of the Inners is a friend of mine._ He might have given a tiny nod, I wasn't quite sure, but I sent him the most powerful pulse of emotion I could muster: hope, determination, righteous anger—and maybe even a tiny bit of love.

At the same moment, the eclipse began, staining the edge of the moon bloodred.


	6. The Eclipse

Darkrai began to glow as eerily red as the eclipsed moon, and the Inners pounced forward to absorb the power radiating from his body. With a primeval yell, I flung myself in front of the three evil creatures, buying just enough time for Darkrai to get up before Inner-Adrienne reached out and batted me easily out of the way.

Filled with the emotion that I'd channeled to him, it seemed that Darkrai now stood a fighting chance. "Keep your filthy hands off that Mesprit, Inner!" the dark Pokémon roared, quickly charging up a Shadow Ball attack between his hands and launching it into her chest.

With a cry of angry surprise, Inner-Adrienne hurtled backward into the cave wall, dislodging a cloud of rubble as she slammed against it. Inner-Maddie and Inner-Tiger watched her with wide eyes as she stood up shakily and screamed at them, "What are you idiots waiting for?! Absorb his power before the eclipse runs out! We won't have another shot at this if we fail now!"

The two other Inners jerked into action as Inner-Adrienne hurried forward to rejoin them. Their eyes glowed pinkish-white, and they began to float upward. Tiger, the Dragonite, Darkrai and I cried out in unison.

"Did you think we'd come here unprepared for a battle?" sneered Inner-Maddie.

"Just before Darkrai put Cresselia out of action, the three of us took the liberty of absorbing her powers. Clever, no?" said Inner-Tiger. "Of course, Cresselia's abilities will be next to useless once we've ripped the eclipse power from Darkrai's worthless body and used it to control Adrienne's soul."

Inner-Adrienne floated up. "Once we have Azelf's control over the willpower of all living things, no one will be able to stop us!" she declared. "Inners, prepare to attack!"

Sparks of purple-pink psychic energy flew from their bodies as the Inner Evils slowly charged up power. Immediately we went on the defensive; Tiger and I worked together to quickly set up a Light Screen that would shield us from the worst damage from a Psychic-type attack, and the Dragonite created a Safeguard to protect us in case the Inners tried to inflict nasty status conditions on us. This wasn't a good time to be asleep, poisoned, or paralyzed.

Then Darkrai turned to leave.

"Hey, what are you _doing_?" I shouted at him as he hurried away.

"Something that _should_ have been done a long time ago, Mesprit," he shouted back over his shoulder; moments later he disappeared into the dark distance.

"The name is MADDIE!" I called after him. "Fantastic," I thought angrily, "he's abandoning us. So much for fighting back. Well, let him run!" Whether Darkrai decided to betray his allies to save his own sorry skin was _his_ business, not mine. Right now all I wanted was to kick some serious Inner butt!

"Heeey... where's _he_ going?" Inner-Tiger demanded, narrowing her pink-glowing eyes.

"Ugh, who cares? He's got nowhere to hide anyway," said Inner-Adrienne. "Still, I suppose we can't have him getting too far away; we might not catch him before the eclipse ends. Bring him back." Inner-Tiger nodded and flew off after Darkrai.

At least the odds were better now, three against two, but I got the bad feeling that numbers weren't everything in this particular fight. I doubted that even a powerful Light Screen could fully block an attack fueled by the power of a legendary Pokémon like Cresselia. Still, if we could just hold off their attacks long enough for the eclipse to run out...

"Inner-Adrienne! _Inner-Adrienne! He's freed them!_"

Before she'd even disappeared into the reddish darkness, Inner-Tiger had turned back and was flying back toward us at top speed.

"_What?_ Who? Freed _who_?" Inner-Adrienne snapped.

"I think you mean 'freed _whom_,' " replied Inner-Tiger breathlessly as she rejoined the Inners and continued to charge up power. When Inner-Adrienne glared at her she said, "Darkrai, duh, who else! He's freed Cresselia and the other Adrienne! They're headed this way right now, and none of them are too happy with us!"

My heart leaped as hope filled it once again. Darkrai hadn't abandoned us after all, and he'd even saved my sister and his old rival Cresselia!

"Oh, _them_," said Inner-Adrienne with a dismissive snort. "What does that useless creature think he's accomplishing by freeing those two invalids? Once we're rid of his weak little friends, he won't have anyone to run to for help." She chuckled spitefully.

Just then Darkrai and his 'weak little friends' burst onto the scene, all attacking at once. Inner-Tiger was the first to get hit; one of Darkrai's Shadow Ball attacks toppled her flat on her back in a patch of thorny rose-like plants. A very weak Psybeam from Cresselia was enough to throw Inner-Maddie off-balance for a few confusing seconds.

Adrienne's golden Azelf eyes glowered with rage as she shot through the air toward her hated Inner Evil. (She used quite a few words that I'd rather not repeat as she vented her fury, so I'll tone it down a bit. If you think normal words are being used where she was actually cussing, you're probably right, but I'll just leave the real words to your imagination.) "So, thought you'd use my freakin' body like a freakin' puppet, did ya?! Well, guess what? You can take that idea and _shove it where the sun don't shine_! IMPRISON!"

From her badly listing flight, I could tell it took a ton of effort for Adrienne to perform the Psychic-type Imprison attack, but I had to admit it was a good idea: Now the Inners wouldn't be able to use any of the attacks known to Azelf, which, by lucky coincidence, were mainly Psychic-type techniques like Cresselia's.

Inner-Adrienne just laughed scornfully. "If you think that pitiful move's going to save you, then you'd better say your prayers now and get it over with." The real Adrienne's face fell, and I could see that she was desperately wondering the same thing as I was: What attack were the Inners going to use?

Seconds later, we found out the answer.

"Are we all ready?!" said Inner-Adrienne.

The other two shouted, "We're ready!"

And then all three shouted in unison, "CHARGED-UP SHADOW END!"

Shadow End. The deadliest Shadow-type attack, usually only usable by Pokémon tainted by evil. And they were aiming it straight at us, being careful to avoid Adrienne and Darkrai, of course. I knew instinctively that such an attack would shatter our Light Screen like it was nothing. Without thinking I thrust myself in front of my friends just as a sharp-pointed beam of black light exploded from the Inners—black light that looked just like Darkrai's dark moonbeam attack, only with rivulets of pink Cresselia energy running down it, no doubt amping up its power to a lethal level. I heard someone scream my name, and a split second before the beam would've hit me, a powerful hand shoved me to one side. There was a howl of pain, and I knew that whoever had pushed me had also taken the attack in my place.

I spun around in time to see Darkrai plummet from the air. The red glow of the eclipse faded from his body as it hit the ground and stopped moving for good.

* * *

I could feel myself screaming, but the only thing I could hear was the volcanic roar of my heart as I threw myself at the Inner Evils. The Inners had done this to Darkrai, and now I was going to do the same to them. I didn't care if I was weak; I would rip them all to shreds with my bare hands. I would—

"Maddie, they're leaving," Adrienne's voice rasped in my ear. She'd screamed herself hoarse at Inner-Adrienne. I forced myself to focus and saw that she was right; the Inners gawked at Darkrai's limp form for only a moment before turning tail and fleeing.

"_Get out of my soul!" _Adrienne screeched after them, and they disappeared immediately in three flashes of light. Back to the mental world. Back to plotting their evil schemes. Back to caring about no one but themselves.

How I hated them. I had never hated so much in my entire life. And I doubted I would ever hate this much again.

My terrible anger eventually faded as a horrible hollowness took its place. "Darkrai," I whispered. Around me, Adrienne, Tiger and the Dragonite stared at the selfless Pokémon, their expressions dull with sorrow.

Cresselia approached Darkrai's body and used what remained of her psychic powers to lift it. "This is a sad night," she said softly. We bobbed our heads in silent agreement. "But do not be too sad. There will soon be another Darkrai; such is the way of things. The cycle of life never ends. I will care for this Darkrai's body until then."

She looked at Adrienne, Tiger and me, smiling sadly at each of us in turn. "I am certain you want to return home now. If we all put our powers together, it will be quite simple." We nodded, and Cresselia let us say our goodbyes to the Dragonite.

"See you," the Dragon Pokémon said, his distinctive friendly grin marred by grief. "Maybe someday we can meet under better circumstances."

"We'll be looking forward to it," replied Adrienne. She paused for a moment. "But guys, when we do come to visit, don't let Dragonite anywhere near a karaoke machine. I promise you'll regret it if you do. This guy can_not_ sing, no joke."

To my surprise I actually managed to laugh weakly along with all my friends. The Dragonite laughed the loudest of all, of course. Not many people can make fun of themselves, but he was one of them. I would genuinely miss the guy.

Laughing was the last thing I remembered doing before waking up in bed.

* * *

"Geography! Oh, geez, oh, geeeeez, what're we gonna do about the Ringworm's stupid project?" Adrienne was practically pulling her hair out by the roots as she paced the room. It was six o'clock in the morning. Even after her ordeal with the Inners, she still cared about making an A in world geography. Her desperation could be annoying, but right now at least it was taking my mind off Darkrai.

"Hey, chill! It's still the morning right after the start of our little trip to Psycho Land—no offense, Adrienne, but at least we've still got time," Tiger called from the restroom, where she was brushing her teeth. I heard her spit toothpaste, and she ran back into the bedroom, where Adrienne paced and I sat going over the instructions for the assignment.

"The only instructions are to make a map of an imaginary place, key included," I grumbled. "What the heck?"

"Oh, that's all?" Tiger grinned. "How about endless fields of flowers for a start?"

Adrienne looked at her, mystified, but I caught on. "Yeah, and randomly appearing caves full of Latin and furry snakes that fly and rivers with no water," I added.

"Ha ha," said Adrienne. "Hilarious. But hey, it's better than nothing."

So after doing some quick but still pretty good-looking sketches on blank computer paper, we had something to turn in after all. We ended up getting an A plus, too. _"Very creative!" _was what the Ringworm wrote across the top in red ink. _"It's almost as if you've actually been there."_

I smiled to myself when I read the comment.

If only she knew.


	7. Epilogue

"I can't believe it. I cannot believe how badly you two screwed this up."

Back in the mental world, Inner-Adrienne had been chewing out the other two Inners for the past several hours, and she didn't plan to stop anytime soon. Her plan, her perfect plan, had ended in complete disaster, and as far as she cared to believe, the blame rested squarely on the other Inners' shoulders.

"Inner-Adrienne, for the millionth time, we had already unleashed the Shadow End before that idiot Darkrai intervened," Inner-Tiger said wearily.

"Then you should have tried to reabsorb the attack! Duh!"

Finally Inner-Maddie snapped. "Well, there's no use in thinking about all the ways we messed up, is there?!" she shouted, throwing her arms up. "Let's hear some more pearls of wisdom come spilling from that big mouth of yours. Surely there's a Plan B!"

"Darkrai _was_ Plan B," Inner-Adrienne snapped. "Plan A was supposed to happen the first time we ever met those three pathetic morons. Didn't work out too well for us, did it, seeing how we ended stuck at the bottom of a lake. Listen! This time I've got something so foolproof, not even you two halfwits will be able to screw it up."

"Let's hear it, then, the suspense is absolutely _killing_ me," replied Inner-Tiger sullenly.

"I'm sure it is. And in reply, I have only one word. The word that will solve everything." Inner-Adrienne paused, relishing the other Inners' expectant gazes.

She smiled unpleasantly.

"Arceus."


End file.
